Solar ordinance adopted but battles continue

MUNCIE, Ind. — After nearly two years under a moratorium, Delaware County now has a solar ordinance with guidelines for development of utility-sized solar fields. However, solar proponents remain concerned about setback rules that went into effect with the rest of the ordinance after the Delaware County−Muncie Plan Commission's unanimous vote Wednesday evening.

The commission voted 9-0 in favor of changing the zoning ordinance to decrease the maximum farm acreage for solar use from 35,000 acres, first approved by the plan commission, to 5,000 acres as voted for by Delaware County Commissioners in November. With the approval of the change by the plan commission, the ordinance is now in place, said plan commission attorney Brandon Murphy.

But the change in the setback requirements, solar boosters say, could likely disqualify the county from receiving state money that might be made available to counties considered "solar ready" by state officials.

An adopted setback approved by the plan commission in the just-passed ordinance is 500 feet from the property lines of land owners not participating in the solar project. But the state recommends a setback of just 250 feet from dwellings on nonparticipating property.

The Indiana General Assembly passed SB 411 in 2022, a bill which provided suggested regulations for zoning ordinances at solar fields. State Rep. Sue Errington, D-Muncie, told the commission Wednesday that the state established the Solar Energy Ready Communities program earlier this year. It began in July and is housed in the Office of Energy Development.

As of yet, the program has not certified any county as a "solar ready community" and it has no funds to distribute to qualifying communities. "But I really believe there will be in the future," Errington said. "And propbably not that distant."

She said it would be to the county's advantage to come as close to the "default" standards set by the state, rather than risk being disqualified by the setbacks as they now stand.

In February 2022, county commissioners imposed a moratorium on solar field development and approved a plan by the late Plan Commission Director Marta Moody to establish a solar committee, made up of opponents and supporters of developing solar energy on local farmland, to make suggestions for a new solar ordinance. Moody died in January this year but the committee had met and a series of recommendations were presented to the plan commission in November.

Many of the suggestions by the solar committee were rejected by the commission, while others were kept. Setbacks for nonparticipating homeowners were approved from the property lines and at double the length the state suggested from nonparticipating owner dwellings.

One solar opponent told the plan commission that the approved set back distance is not so distant for the people who have to live next to solar fields.

Controversy errupted in 2021 after several farmers in Washington Township discovered some of their neighbor farmers had signed leases with Invenergy, a renewable energy company based in Chicago, to develop a project called Meadow Forge that would place solar panels from about Gaston north to Matthews at the Grant County line.

The controversy over changing the rural landscape of the area and leasing farm ground for solar energy has riven the Gaston community. The passage of the solar ordinance has apparently not settled the matter.

The plan commission, which was meeting in a special session, was to only consider the acreage cap issue Tuesday but other issues persist.

Invenergy attorney Kristina Kern Wheeler, an Indianapolis attorney representing Invenergy, said she doesn't think the 5,000-acre limit on solar development is legal because state law did not permit local officials to make regulations regarding solar development, unless the matter had to do with health and safety. She said she doesn't think the acreage cap qualifies.

Wheeler also said the setback issue creates more problems because it removes land from the solar project while at the same time the ordinance places a limit on acreage that might be added.

Solar supporters, including Errington, said the acreage limit was unnecessary because the wires and electric infrastructure can only handle so much energy and makes solar projects self-limiting.

Wheeler told The Star Press after the Plan Commission meeting that it is too early to say if the county setback regulations would cause her client to withdraw the project because so much remains unsettled.

In addition to changes to the solar ordinance, a tax abatement for Invenergy agreed to by the Delaware County Council more than two years ago might also be up in the air.

The council's tax abatement committee will meet in the first week of January to discuss matters related to the solar abatements. In November 2021, the county agreed to a 10-year abatement on property taxes for the machinery and equipment involved in Meadow Forge.

Committee Chairman Bill Hughes said the committee would report back to the whole council at the public meeting of the council in late January.

In addition to Meadow Forge, a solar development by a different company, Hawthorn Solar, LLC, a subsidiary of National Renewable Energy Corp. based in Charlotte, North Carolina, also entered into abatement agreements with the county. Smaller than Meadow Forge, that project would have placed $88 million worth of equipment on roughly 355 acres south of Albany.

Council Member Ryan Webb said he was wrong when he voted to support the Invenergy abatement. He asked company representatives if they had encountered any opposition to the solar project. He was told there was none in October 2021. By February 2022 the protests led the moratorium on all utility-scale solar projects that ended Wednesday night.

David Penticuff is a reporter with The Star Press. He can be contacted at dpenticuff@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Solar ordinance adopted but battles continue